July was a productive month for bilateral cooperation between Armenia and Georgia. Firstly, the two states expanded their dialogue in the military sphere. On July 16, a delegation headed by Armenia’s first Deputy Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan visited Tbilisi. A subsequent meeting between representatives of the two defense ministries took place on June 24-25 within the framework of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels, during which Armenia’s and Georgia’s Defense Ministers Seyran Ohanyan and Tinatin Khidasheli discussed bilateral military ties. Khidasheli later explained that the parties agreed “to find new areas of cooperation.”

On August 7, Tbilisi City court froze the assets of Georgia’s leading media company – Rustavi 2 TV – based on a the lawsuit of businessman Kibar Khalvashi claiming that the formerly ruling United National Movement (UNM) party forced him to give up his share in the company in 2006.

The Iranian nuclear deal may create new opportunities for Armenia. However, whereas Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other governmental agencies should consider the opening prospects of energy cooperation with Iran seriously, their traditional pro-Russian attitude reduces the chance for taking advantage of the changing geopolitical situation and, at the same time, increases the risks for Armenia’s own security and regional stability in general.

On June 18-20, 2015, NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly held the 89th Rose-Roth seminar in Armenia’s capital Yerevan. It mainly covered the current status of the Armenia-NATO partnership, security issues and challenges that recently emerged in the post-Soviet region and the Middle East. It was declared that the seminar would be unprecedented and firmly reflect positive developments in contrast to the setback in Armenia’s EU integration. The three-day meeting brought together a range of experts, representatives of alliance members and officials from different states, but was conducted against the backdrop of Armenia’s consistent albeit implicit “vassalization” by Russia.

Though Yerevan stressed practical cooperation and its contribution to various missions in Kosovo and Afghanistan through Partnership for Peace (PfP), it kept a certain distance from the intensive political dialogue that is a constitutive part of IPAP. The apogee of the deepening ties between NATO and Armenia came in the period 2010-2013, when Yerevan aimed to sign an Association Agreement (AA) and a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the EU, pursuing wide-ranging reforms in both its political-economic and defense sectors. In this light, the promising EU-Armenia relations were inevitably reflected in the ties between NATO and Armenia.

There is no formal institutional link between the EU integration process and NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Partnership for the eastern neighbors, although the advance in partnering with the EU reflects positively on relations with NATO and vice versa. Therefore, there was an expectation in several segments of Armenia’s civil society and among some policymakers that despite its failure to integrate more closely with the EU, Yerevan still had a real scope for consolidating its partnership with NATO even following its engagement with the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). However, it soon became clear that Moscow’s strong objection to Armenia’s deepening integration with the EU would also seriously deteriorate the country’s relations with NATO, hence negatively affecting Armenia’s security.

The choices made by Armenian officials under heavy pressure from Moscow clearly impaired the country’s reliability in the eyes of the EU to the extent that the EU’s pledge to keep its door open for Armenia has become little more than a phrase.

Likewise, Armenia’s unexpected U-turn away from European integration in September 2013 implied a departure from the path of democratization, instead prioritizing its membership in organizations forged by authoritarian regimes like the Russia-led CSTO and EEU. Consequently, Armenia’s current policy is consistent with Russia’s interests, something NATO could not afford to ignore, and requiring a review of NATO’s relations with Armenia in light of the mounting standoff between the West and Russia.

Amid NATO’s gradually toughening stance vis-à-vis Russia’s belligerent policy, Armenia has taken a set of political steps which were at odds with NATO policy, most blatantly by voting against the UN resolution declaring Crimea’s referendum on joining Russia invalid, and hence for legitimating Russia’s occupation, along with few non-democratic states. This decision was apparently dictated by Russia, but it is noteworthy that it met little protest either from Armenian authorities or Armenian society at large. Moreover, groups of Russia-backed activists in Stepanakert and Yerevan managed to celebrate Crimea’s “self-determination,” placing the region in the same category as Nagorno-Karabakh.

By voting against its resolution, Armenia partly broke the PfP document signed in 1994, where Yerevan committed to the preservation of democratic societies, the maintenance of international law, and to fulfill in good faith the obligations of the Charter of the UN. Moreover, Yerevan damaged its relations with Ukraine, which is in the same NATO partnership framework as Armenia.

By pressure from the Kremlin and as spill-over effect of propaganda addressed to Armenian society, Armenia is being converted into a NATO opponent. Armenia is gradually turning into an isolated tool for Russia in its confrontation with the West, and in its strategy to as far as possible shield the South Caucasus from integration with the West in terms of security, communications, politics and values.

These developments vividly illustrate that Armenia can no longer be considered a prospective political partner of NATO, despite ongoing practical cooperation that will nevertheless likely be reduced after the Armenian peacekeepers leave Afghanistan.

In its effort to reverse Armenia’s relations with NATO, Moscow may finally compel Armenia’s Ministry of Defense to simply suspend its IPAP and PfP programs with NATO.

Moscow has successfully leveraged the political imperative of Armenia’s security, by which Armenia was induced to become a CSTO member. This military quasi-block on its own poses a threat to stability in the South Caucasus, serving Russia’s revisionist policy. It is also becoming clear that the CSTO, which is formally committed to bolstering Armenia’s security, has little capacity to fulfil such a function in practice. Moreover, the main military CSTO partners, Russia and Belarus, continuously contribute to arming Armenia’s main rival Azerbaijan.

The events surrounding Ukraine indeed had dramatic implications for Armenia’s relations with the EU and NATO. Yet the Ukrainian crisis also gave rise to a sense of hope in Armenian society and there is an increasing understanding that a collapse of Russian policy in Ukraine could help Armenia regain its sovereignty. However, by opting to remain in Russia’s orbit, Armenia has in all likelihood lost its potential to foster a democratic and prosperous state with a flourishing economy and simultaneously bolster its security. Armenia’s government still does not comprehend that security is better served by building a closer relationship with NATO.

The Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst is a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a Joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center affiliated with the American Foreign Policy Council, Washington DC., and the Institute for Security and Development Policy, Stockholm. For 15 years, the Analyst has brought cutting edge analysis of the region geared toward a practitioner audience.